Blackberry fires Alicia Keys

Alicia Keys, BlackBerry and how the #KeepMoving project stopped
Singer's role as Global Creative Director will end after a year; the project she was hired for doesn't seem to have met its aims. But do celebrities ever succeed in tech tieups?
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The appointment in January 20134 of Keys - better known as a singer and songwriter who has won multiple Grammy awards - at the launch of the Z10 phone, puzzled many. Was she getting paid? Almost certainly. Was she a fantastic advertisement for BlackBerry? Well, given that soon after being appointed, she tweeted from an iPhone - the horror! - it looked for a few minutes as though things would come to an embarrassing end. But she blamed it on hackers, so that made it all right, and she got on with.. what did she do again?

According to BlackBerry, it certainly wasn't a sinecure - not at all. BlackBerry told us: "We thank Alicia for her many contributions including providing creative direction for the BlackBerry Keep Moving Project which attracted more than 40 million visits, advocating for women in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] and launching the BlackBerry Scholars Program. We have enjoyed the opportunity to work with such an incredibly talented and passionate individual."

And was she paid? "We cannot disclose specific details on the terms of the contract."

Since Keys took up the previously nonexistent reins of Global Creative Director, to globally creatively direct things, BlackBerry's staff numbers have shrunk from around 12,300 in January 2013 to 11,500 by September 2013 - at which point management said that another 4,500 jobs would go over the next few quarters, taking the company down to 7,000 staff worldwide.

At that point someone seems to have noticed "Keys, Alicia" on a staffing form somewhere and said "What has she creatively directed for us globally lately?"

Well, not quite. Keys's departure is really about the death of the "BlackBerry Keep Moving" project, a formless idea which aimed to get writers (Neil Gaiman), filmmakers (Robert Rodriguez) and musicians (Keys) to bandy the BlackBerry name around and bring young people to the company site, where they could be enthused with the benefits of new phones.

As you could predict, it didn't work, especially given BlackBerry's woeful financial position. Although it used the "Keep moving" tagline on its advertising, the fact that there was a whole scheme behind it passed almost everyone by.

There is some inside scoop offered by the Hollywood Reporter, which says that Keys had originally signed up to "develop ideas and content for the Keep Moving project, which got some stage presence during her US tour early in 2013, and then effectively vanished. There were weekly discussions on the phone, it says - but all the BlackBerry executives who were on the Keep Moving project have now gone. "She got on a sinking ship," it quotes "a source close to Keys" as saying.

Judging by the tweets from the BlackBerry account using the #KeepMoving hashtag on BlackBerry's site, the Keep Moving project hasn't, well, moved since August.

BlackBerry Keep Moving: not moving
BlackBerry's Keep Moving page shows no sign of movement since August 2013. Photograph: /public domain
We've previously examined the question of quite what it is that celebrities bring to tech companies, or vice-versa. The answer seems to be: not much either way.

Will.i.am at CES with Intel in 2012.
Will.i.am with Intel CEO Paul Otellini at CES in Las Vegas in January 2012. He played a song on his Ultrabook. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
The list of participants isn't short. Besides Keys, there's spinning-chair-torch-Olympian Will.i.am, who in January 2011 became director of creative innovation at Intel (raising the question of whether Intel also has someone in charge of uncreative innovation, and/or creative copying). Is his name synonymous with Intel? Has it sold more ultrabooks? We'll leave that to the marketing specialists.

Jessica Alba
iPhone user Jessica Alba explains to Microsoft's Joe Belfiore why she's going to use Windows Phone 8. A few months later, she went back to her iPhone. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Getty Images
Then there's Jessica Alba, who helped Microsoft launch Windows Phone 8 in October 2012 - and I think we can all agree that it was her presence on a stage looming over Joe Belfiore which has helped it to a double-digit market share in countries such as Mexico.

Alba, who waxed lyrical about the benefits of parent-friendly elements of the new OS such as Kids Corner, went back to using an iPhone only seven months later , as evidenced by her tweets.

Lady Gaga appears with Polaroid's chief operating officer John Pollock to announce their design partnership.
Lady Gaga appears with Polaroid's chief operating officer John Pollock to announce their design partnership. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Nor should we forget Polaroid and Lady Gaga. She, too, became its Creative Director, appearing at CES in 2010 to launch camere glasses. Their names have of course become as intertwined and interchangeable as chalk and cheese - principally because Polaroid was heading for bankruptcy, and couldn't afford to follow through.

Ashton Kutcher in Jobs
Just the jobs? … Ashton Kutcher in his role as Steve Jobs for the film Jobs. But the job he took is with Lenovo. Photograph: Glen Wilson/AP
A so-far unknown in terms of his impact on a company is the actor Ashton Kutcher, hired - apparently - by Lenovo in October to be a product engineer. On what? Here's what USA Today was told:

"This partnership goes beyond traditional bounds by deeply integrating him into our organization as a product engineer," said David Roman, chief marketing officer at Lenovo. "Ashton will help us break new ground by challenging assumptions, bringing new perspective and contributing his technical expertise to Yoga Tablet and other devices."

We'll have to wait for news of precisely what part of former chemical engineering undergraduate Kutcher's expertise is being brought to bear on the Tablet (which was already on sale before his hiring).

Meanwhile, Keys's departure does leave the door open for BlackBerry to take up the offer from another Canadian to help it out. Justin Bieber offered in 2007 to be a "brand ambassador" for the company, but was turned down flat by marketing executives. Maybe it's the only thing that could tempt him out of retirement.

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